WHY DO WE FAST BUT YOUR DISCIPLES DON'T?

Matthew 9:14-17

Even as Jesus is portrayed in many passages from the bible as fulfilling the prophecies, he is also portrayed as disturbing religious customs and traditions. Jesus seems not to follow the line of the Jewish custom. Earlier on Jesus healed a sick person on the Sabbath, and his disciples had already been noticed picking grain on the Sabbath and eating without the prescribed ceremonial washing. Adding to that, they are not fasting, and the Pharisees must have found that this rabbi is increasingly troubling the ordinary way of living.

In the Gospel of today we find this controversy on the practice of fasting which is an important practice in the Jewish culture according to the Law of Moses. The Pharisees respected that and apparently, the disciples of John were doing something similar this is why they approached Jesus asking why his disciples were not fasting. If Jesus’ disciples were not fasting, then it called to question their piety, they sincerity and their devotion toward the ceremonial law; it called to question Jesus’ attitude toward the law and the custom of the people of God. In responding to that, Jesus clarifies that fasting or Christian practices are not mere legal demands; but they are ways of becoming closer to God. Christianity is not a mere adjustment of the old uniform of Judaism; it is something new; it is the new spirit of the law. It is the new redemption which involves a total regeneration, not old formalism.

Sometimes in our lives we make this pharisaic mistake. We like to have a way of measuring our lives; we like to have regulations in our lives, which is something good. The danger and the problem is when we slide toward formalism. The danger and the problem is when we think that the simple fact of following the law puts us at the right side. We satisfy our conscience that I been faithful to the law of my community, my congregation, my church, my country then I am a good person. It becomes worse when our faithfulness to the law is in order to please somebody or in order to acquire something we want. The gospel tells us that our faithfulness to the law is null if it does not help us to reach higher values and to grow in our Christian life. Jesus is not telling us to reject the law. He wants us to nourish good motivations. So the biggest question is: Why am I faithful? Why I am going to mass every morning? Why I am doing such and such practice of the Church?